Cardinal Stafford at Catholic University

Cardinal at CUA: Obama is ‘Aggressive, Disruptive and Apocalyptic’
by Elizabeth Grden November 14th.

His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,“ and said he campaigned on an “extremist anti-life platform,” Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture “Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul.“

“Because man is a sacred element of secular life,” Stafford remarked, “man should not be held to a supreme power of state, and a person’s life cannot ultimately be controlled by government.”

“For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden,” Stafford said, comparing America’s future with Obama as president to Jesus’ agony in the garden. “On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.”

Cardinal Stafford said Catholics must deal with the “hot, angry tears of betrayal” by beginning a new sentiment where one is “with Jesus, sick because of love.”

The lecture, hosted by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, pertained to Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical written by Pope Paul VI in 1968 and celebrating its 40 anniversary this year.

Stafford also spoke about the decline of a respect for human life and the need for Catholics to return to the original values of marriage and human dignity.

“If 1968 was the year of America’s ‘suicide attempt,’ 2008 is the year of America’s exhaustion,” said Stafford, an American Cardinal and Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary for the Tribunal of the Holy See. “In the intervening 40 years since Humanae Vitae, the United States has been thrown upon ruins.”

This destruction and America’s decline is largely in part due to the Supreme Court’s decisions in the life-issue cases of 1973, specifically Roe v. Wade. Stafford asserted these cases undermined respect for human life in the United States.

“Its scrupulous meanness has had catastrophic effects upon the unity and integrity of the American republic,” said Stafford.

Humanae Vitae (“On Human Life”) reaffirms traditional Catholic teachings regarding abortion, contraception and other human life issues. Pope Benedict XVI said in May it is “so controversial, yet so crucial for humanity’s future…What was true yesterday is true also today.”

Monsignor Livio Melina, president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, gave the opening address at the lecture and spoke about the importance of agape love to gain knowledge.
“Love itself is a form of knowledge, and this knowledge cannot be objectified,” said Melina. “It is a unique relationship between the believer and God.”

Stafford said the truest reflection of the love between the believer and God is that of the relationship between husband and wife, and that contraceptive use does not fit anywhere within that framework.
According to Stafford, the inner dynamic of a spousal relationship is much like the body itself, which ‘speaks’ in terms of masculinity and femininity.

“The experience of love introduces us in a specific way to moral knowledge,” added Melina.

We're on the Move....

Lots of lovely stone walls in Stafford Springs, CT

It's great to be retired. Periodically we pack up our camper and head out on the open road to explore. Sometimes we take grandchildren and sometimes we are off on our own. Last year we planned to go to Nova Scotia, but our bees weren't doing well and we stayed home to feed them several times a week to make sure they had enough food to get through the winter.

This year, they are thriving and we decided to let them fend for themselves for a month. So we are out and about -- praying many rosaries in the car as we drive or walk in the woods or sit on a park bench and just watch the world go by.

Ivermectin Horse Paste Miraculously Cures Me From Covid in Three Hours

Jesus bringing me ivermectin horse paste from the feed store

In 1918 my grandfather died in Stafford, Virginia from the Spanish flu pandemic. He died, as did millions of others, from the Spanish flu's secondary infection: bacterial pneumonia. Therefore two years ago when I refused to get the Covid vaccine my younger daughter, trying to guilt-trip me into getting the shot, said, "You should be ashamed of yourself! If your grandfather had been able to have a vaccine he wouldn't have died!"

I explained that the millions of deaths from the Spanish flu were caused not because the flu was a viral infection and there was no vaccine, but because it turned into bacterial pneumonia and in 1918 the miracle drug of penicillin had not yet been discovered. It wasn't discovered until 1928 and even then not put on the market until 1942. In 1945 the three scientists involved in the development of penicillin were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Ivermectin is another miracle drug. It was discovered in 1975, approved for human use in 1987 and in 2015 the two men responsible for its discovery and development were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. Ivermectin is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines and is approved by the FDA as an anti-parasitic agent so why is there such animosity against prescribing ivermectin to combat Covid? Ann Barnhardt explains that HERE. She answers all other ivermectin questions HERE.

Russell Kirk: Ten Conservative Principles Part 2 -- The Lilies of the Field

Kirk's next three principles also correspond well to Catholic thought.

4. Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence. So are Catholics. In his book, The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper quotes Church teaching that prudence is the "mother" of the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance). "In other words," says Pieper, "none but the prudent man can be just, brave, and temperate, and the good man is good in so far as he is prudent." Kirk and Pieper both look to Plato because the ancient philosophers also saw prudence as the first and head of the other virtues. It is not a novel idea. Kirk explains it saying, "As John Randolph put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries.... The conservative...acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery." The Catholic too is encouraged to "discern" before making decisions. That means taking the time to pray, study, and consult the wise before making a decision. So again, Kirk's fourth principle corresponds to Catholic action.

5. Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. This is probably my favorite principle because it recognizes the good sense of multiplicity and how it reflects the abundance and generosity of God. Think of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Variety illustrates the beauty and wonder of God who made every individual unique. The true conservative isn't interested in creating a society where man is a cog in a machine or in producing the stripped bauhaus architecture of utility. He also is a realist who recognizes, like Kirk points out, that, "For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must survive orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation." Kirk isn't recommending subjugating the masses here; rather he recognizes that men have different capacities and talents and that a healthy society recognizes it. Catholic teaching says the same. "There are different gifts, but the same spirit gives them," says St. Paul. The head is not called to be the foot. In the body of Christ, all the parts are valuable in their diversity. Kirk hits the nail on the head again.

6. Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectibility. Men are not angels; we are inflicted by the reality of original sin. This understanding is implicit in Kirk's point. "Man, being imperfect, no perfect social order ever can be created....All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk....The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell." Amen! Look at the Enlightenment with its adulation of reason and the false promises of Communism and its less violent sister, Socialism, for the reality of Kirk's thought. As Obama imposes his liberal revolution on the United States, we have a birdseye view of the "terrestrial hell" Kirk mentions. This principle sounds very much like what Cardinal Stafford said recently when he warned, "For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden." The Utopia promised by liberal politicians and their cohorts like Planned Parenthood looks more like Huxley's Brave New World than the Garden of Eden before the fall. We embrace their false promise of a new world order at the risk of getting another hell-hole of history.

To be continued...

Who Owes the Apology? Barbara Johnson

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	Media Contact: Paul Rondeau
March 13, 2012	540.659.4171 | e-mail: prondeau@all.org
BARBARA JOHNSON OWES MOTHER AND CATHOLIC CHURCH AN APOLOGY Liberal Media Complicit in Fake 'Lesbian Communion' Controversy:  ALL
Stafford, VA - Self-identified lesbian Barbara Johnson was denied Holy Communion by a Catholic priest at her mother's funeral. Within two weeks of Johnson taking the story to the media, Father Marcel Guarnizo was relieved of his priestly faculties at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for reasons that the Archdiocese of Washington claims are unrelated----but also have not explained. Judie Brown, president and co-founder of American Life League, released the following statement: The only controversy here is that manufactured by Barbara Johnson. The gay-friendly media havepainted her the teary-eyed victim with grossly misrepresented and omitted facts about Ms. Johnson and Catholic teaching in order to further attacks on the Catholic Church. Ms. Johnson knows full well that the Church considers practicing homosexuality as "intrinsically disordered" and a grave sin. This by itself would bar her from presenting herself to receive the blessed sacrament of Communion. Moreover, in an interview just last year, Johnson claimed Buddhism as her way of life, not Catholicism. Either of these states disqualifies her from Communion. She nevertheless presented herself and then took the denial of the Blessed Sacrament to the liberal media for political purposes where she was welcomed with open arms to conjure yet another anti-Catholic story. Holy Communion is not some ceremonial wafer as denigrated by gay-friendly liberal media. The Catholic faithful believe the Host to be the true body of Christ. One must be in a state of graceaccording to Catholic teaching in order to partake this most holy sacrament. The priest has an obligation to make sure that the sacraments are respected and no one is entitled to the Eucharist. Ms. Johnson selfishly manipulated the funeral of her own mother, a lifelong Catholic, in an attempt to force Father Guarnizo to allow a sacrilege, then accused him of bringing politics into the Church. This selfish anti-Catholic activism shows that Ms. Johnson's statement that Catholics should put aside "political points of view" is sheer hypocrisy. So no, it is neither Father Guarnizo nor the Catholic Church that should be contrite. Rather, it is Ms. Johnson's disgraceful behavior that obliges an apology to both her mother and her mother's lifelong Church. ###   Media inquiries, please contact Paul E. Rondeau at 540.659.4171 or prondeau@ALL.org. Judie Brown is a three-time appointee to the Pontifical Academy for Life and author of The Broken Path: How Catholic Bishops Got Lost in the Weeds of American Politics.

Good News: Fr. Duesterhaus Cleared. (About time!) Please keep praying for Fr. Ron Escalante!

Editor's Note: Releasing a brief press notice announcing the exoneration is easier to do than to restore the good name of a priest held up to public contempt for month. Accused priests are treated as guilty until proven innocent. How many Catholics know about the accusations? How many fewer know about the exoneration. How will you restore Father's reputation, Bishop Burbidge? 

Diocesan Review Board concludes Father Michael Duesterhaus
not credibly accused of child sexual abuse

July 24, 2019

Since March 14, 2018, the Diocese of Arlington has provided announcements and updates regarding allegations of child sexual abuse and other inappropriate conduct against Father Michael Duesterhaus. Father Duesterhaus was placed on administrative leave pending investigations conducted by local law enforcement agencies and the Diocese of Arlington.

Guest Post: THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS

 by James M. Thunder  

published in The Narthex, blog of New Oxford Review, in four parts Feb. 24, March 8, 11 and 13
Part 1: Notre Dame: The Good News & the Bad News | New Oxford Review

Folks, the good news out of Notre Dame is shockingly good. The bad news out of Notre Dame is shockingly bad. I’ll start with the bad.

On January 8, 2026, Notre Dame issued a press release announcing that a professor, Susan Ostermann, was being appointed, effective July 1, as director of the Liu Institute. Because of her public and persistent pro-abortion views, this appointment has been met with objections by:

Poor Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.: Wilton Gregory Reportedly Gets the See!

CNA is reporting that the assignment is imminent.

Now let's take a hard look at Gregory and the insanity of sending him to follow disgraced Cardinals McCarrick and Wuerl.

Gregory is well-known for being a man who promotes and advances the gay agenda. Check out this article from The American Spectator:

Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory was a protégé of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who played a leading role in the Gaying of the Catholic Church in America. In a nod to that legacy, Bernardin requested the Windy City Gay Men’s Chorus perform at his funeral. As an auxiliary bishop under Bernardin in Chicago, Gregory witnessed the spread of homosexuality within the priesthood and hierarchy up close. Bernardin’s seminary was known as the “pink palace.”